Oww, my feelings! Why a breakup actually hurts (MSNBC)

That’s according to a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, which looks at how our brains process emotional pain. Long story short, they don’t process it much differently than physical discomfort.

In other words, so-called back stabbing is aptly named.

“It means that the expression, ‘My feelings are hurt,’ may be more than just a metaphor,” the study’s lead author Ethan Kross told MSNBC.

To explore that theory, researchers subjected volunteers to two tests. In the first , they were poked with a hot probe — just warm enough to cause physical discomfort. In the second, they were asked to relive past breakups.

From MSNBC:

The same brain areas lit up whether people were being touched by the hot probe or they were mentally reliving their rejections. Some of those areas were the ones that are involved in processing negative emotions, but other areas — those that help us sense physical pain — also lit up.

Kross suspects we’ve evolved to feel actual pain at separation because way back when humans were on thesSavannah they needed to stay connected. Being alone was dangerous — you’d be more of a target for the wandering saber-toothed tiger.